


Broken Glass, No Reflection

by chasexjackson, flyingcrowbar



Series: Giant robots, aliens, and feelings abound - a Pacific Rim AU [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Eventual Romance, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2018-05-16 11:59:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5827753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasexjackson/pseuds/chasexjackson, https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingcrowbar/pseuds/flyingcrowbar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since the fall of Jason Grace and the Jaeger Bronco Thunder, Percy Jackson seeks a new co-pilot. First Lieutenant Annabeth Chase oversees the cadet trials. She is not impressed by the results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Broken Glass, No Reflection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chasexjackson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasexjackson/gifts).



> A continuation of the Jiper Pacific Rim AU. We'll consider that a 10k prologue. Hannah and I loved this universe too much. She'll be posting her chapter soon! I wrote from Annabeth's POV, Hannah will write from Percy's. Enjoy!
> 
> ~flyingcrowbar

The sound of a body hitting the mat echoes around the chamber, followed swiftly by a unified “ooh” released from the crowd, as if they too had taken a punch in the gut and came to on the flat of their back, just as the new trainee experiences first hand thanks to Percy Jackson. 

He looks up at Percy, confused as to 1) how he got there and 2) how he got there so quickly. But Percy extends a hand and pulls the trainee to his feet and sends him shuffling to join the rest of those who are just as beaten and bruised as he is. 

Annabeth makes a note on her clipboard. The entire list of contenders is marked with an X, another failure. Beside each X is a note. She scribbles her thoughts pointedly, and taps the pen to mark the period, a little harder than necessary. She doesn’t raise her head, but looks up as Percy goes back to his end of the room. 

He sniffs and wipes his running nose on his taped hands, then flexes his fingers while rolling his shoulders. He makes it look like this is just a warmup. This is going a lot differently than the last time they did candidate tryouts. Jason Grace had already stood apart from the crowd. He was a fighter through and through, every fiber in his body. Up against Percy, it was a long match. And they worked well together. They complimented each other. Under any other circumstance, they may have been rivals, competing to be top dog of the Shatterdome. But it turned out they were like halves of the same piece. 

And then came the accident... 

Yet now, no one can match Jason’s reflex, his timing, his precision. None of these candidates are compatible. None of them would be able to stand the drift with a veteran like Percy. They’d get swept away, like a plastic cup in a hurricane.

Annabeth makes another note on her sheet. 

If anyone is worthy of being his co-pilot, they must do better than this.  

“Who’s up next?” Frank Zhang asks this, for about the thirtieth time, from in front of the huddled masses of those who are trying out to be the next Jason Grace. They don’t look thrilled. Frank stands with his hands perched over a stave, casually leaning on it as if waiting for something interesting to happen. And nothing interesting  _ will _ happen, not with this group. 

They’re too slow, for one. Too cocky and green, thinking they can trick Percy with a fake out or two only to find themselves with their faces on the floor and their feet in the air. They have heard the stories of the pilot from the now-decommissioned  _ Bronco Thunder _ and want to show their worth and brag about it at dinner, saying that they beat the “famous” Percy Jackson, and that’s their downfall. 

But that’s not why Annabeth is annoyed. Not even close. 

They’re all brawn and force. There’s no thought behind their movements. At least, no thought that’s smart anyway. Their footwork is stunted. She even sees Frank smack the last trainee in the feet with the end of his stave for his sloppiness. He had taught him better than that.

A water bottle sits on a bench next to a crumpled up towel. Percy takes a swig of water and wipes his brow of sweat. He glances over at the trainees, who look between one another, seeing who has the guts to volunteer to go next. They look as if they’re almost ready to fight each other for the chance  _ not _ to go next. He sizes them up while Annabeth sizes Percy up. 

She flips the page over and makes another note, sighing while she does. 

Jason Grace has showed up to watch. He is on the other side of the training room, sitting in his chair as usual, watching the sparring sessions behind linked fingers and a furrowed brow. He doesn’t seem too impressed with the bunch either. Annabeth watches as Piper leans down and whispers something in his ear. He nods to whatever she just said. They’re both looking at Percy.

She knows what they see. She knows that they see a different Percy than the one they’re used to. Ever since the downfall of  _ Bronco _ , Percy doesn’t smile much anymore, he doesn’t eat much either. He’s like a ghost, only possessing the body of his old self.

Yes, that’s what’s annoying her. She can’t read him. He’s functioning on autopilot. Where he used to be coy, creative, cunning - he’s now a mechanical husk. She sees that everything is there, everything is working as it should be. And yet something is missing. 

At any cost, he itches to get back in a Jaeger, she can tell.

It makes him weak. It makes him selfish. 

With that attitude, he’ll never make it. 

He turns back to his bench and wipes his hair clean of sweat with the front of his shirt. The hem of it lifts up just above the edge of his pants and she can see the memory of Jason’s pain branded there on the small of his lower back, circuitry-like lines creeping their way around his skin, as straight as a surgeon’s incision.

It’s a transfer from the drift, physical and psychological. She knows the theory behind it, but seeing it for herself is something entirely different. The agony of Jason’s injuries had only been in his mind, firing off all of the same signals that he was in pain, a pain so excruciating, it haunts him, even though it isn’t his own. How he got the both of them back to shore… Truly, not just any Jaeger pilot could do that alone. 

But she only gets a look at the scar for a moment before Percy pulls his shirt back down and returns to the ring for another round. 

Guilt. That’s probably what it is. She can see it now. Somehow, it might be worse than actual pain. It shows up in his face, in the neutral lines around his mouth, the mask he wears squaring off with another challenger. It’s in the flatness of his hair, the gauntness of his cheeks, the distant, not-quite-there look in his eyes. And Annabeth can see it, peeking around a brick wall in his thoughts. She wonders if it’s to hide what’s truly going on inside his mind, a façade he wears to become unreadable because he doesn’t want to know himself. 

Jason gives Percy an encouraging nod before Percy starts up again and Piper slips a grin. She swipes her thumb across her neck, signaling: _ Finish them _ . 

Annabeth makes another note. 

That’s what makes him unfit to be a pilot again. He’s not ready. He’s using a Jaeger for all the wrong reasons. 

Tryouts today were a bad idea. She huffs and makes another note. 

These are her cadets. This is the top ten percent of students in the academy, hand chosen by  _ her _ . They’re supposed to be the best and they’re not living up to her expectations. She considers starting over with a new group tomorrow, maybe reserving this for another date once Jackson gets his attitude sorted.

Frank practically pushes a trainee into the middle of the mat. His classmates hoot and cheer encouragement, though it’s lost its edge compared to when the fights first started. The new opponent raises his fists, bobbing on the balls of his bare feet. He’s pale, either because he’s scared or because he hasn’t been outside much. He looks like the total opposite to Percy. Noticeably, they have very different fighting stances. Percy is more relaxed, loose. He sweeps his feet across the cushioned floor and he flexes his back. Oxygen fills up his lungs, steadies him, and he turns sideways, scanning every inch of the new guy. 

Annabeth, too, compares the nobbly muscles of him compared to the lithe, coiled swagger in Percy’s body. She hopes the trainee has a quicker reaction time. He’s been ranked subpar on his physical exams, but his performance in strategy training modules has averaged him out into the top tier. By choosing him, she had hoped maybe he would balance Percy, build up his strengths in offense, tighten his weaknesses in forethought. She can see that it was a miscalculation. She could tell this was going to end with one of them on the floor. She already knows which one. 

She makes another note. 

“Fight,” Frank barks, and honestly, it’s almost over before Frank can even finish the word. 

The guy hesitates. To attack or to defend? He can’t decide. Bad move. 

He fakes, ducks right, left - the guy kicks - but Percy grabs him by the foot and flips him. With his arm pinned behind his back, the guy calls uncle almost immediately.

“Point, Jackson,” Frank says, monotone. He suppresses a yawn. 

Annabeth sucks on the insides of her cheeks, puckering her lips in thought, as she notes the results as Percy lifts the guy to his feet and walks back to his bench. 

“What’s with the face?” Percy asks, quieting the crowd. 

Annabeth doesn’t realize that he’s talking to her at first, only after noticing that the room has gone uncomfortably quiet. So she looks up from her clipboard for a moment, glances around, and then sees that Percy has walked into the middle of the mat, his feet planted and his arms crossed, staring directly at her.

“Excuse me?” she asks. 

“Every time I finish a fight, you give this look like -” He makes a face that is an exaggeration of her own. “Am I missing something?” 

“I’m frustrated,” she says, matter-of-factly. 

“You should be. None of these people can drift with me. Didn’t you screen them?”

She looks back down at her clipboard. “It’s not them I’m talking about. It’s you.”

The room goes quiet, quieter than before. All eyes are on Percy. He’s hot red in the face and shifts of his feet. “Sorry?” he asks, his Aussie accent piquing now that he’s upset. 

“You’re not taking this seriously. I would have expected more from you.”

“Like you know better?”

“I do know better, that’s why I’m in charge.”

Percy balks. The trainees look back and forth between the two, like at a Wimbledon match. Annabeth keeps her voice level, throws her words around as if she’s flicking them off her wrist, not troubled to see where they land. She knows she’s right. Even Percy knows she’s right, though he’s too proud to admit it. 

“Alright,” he says, “if you think I’m not serious about this, how about you show me what I’m doing wrong.”

Some of the trainees make noises but are quickly silenced by the look on Annabeth’s face. Her eyebrow is raised, letting Percy’s challenge hang in the air between them. She and Percy have never seen eye-to-eye, not since the incident. They stare each other down. Percy doesn’t think she’ll take him up on the offer. Perhaps he’s testing her, in his own way. This is a different kind of tryout. She regards him, the kilter of his hips, the slight frown of his lips, the muscle throbbing in his cheek. 

Methodically, she bends down to unlace her boots. 

The room buzzes with more excitement than it’s had all day. Some more trainees join the crowd, the numbers growing to watch, anticipating what’s the come. The energy has gathered passersby, wondering what’s about to happen, murmuring with bets and wagers. 

Annabeth takes her time undressing. She unbuttons her jumpsuit and ties the arms around her waist and tucks her dogtags into her white tank top. She sets her boots neatly beside her clipboard on the floor and pads onto the mat. 

She makes sure to pay attention to her bare toes on the firm, plastic floor. It wakes her up a little, invigorates her senses. The mat always smells like feet, and body odor, and cleaning agent, which makes the other smells more potent. She expects this is as close as her nose will ever be to it.  

Her hair is usually tied up into a tight bun, the standard uniform for someone in her position. With a casual twist of her wrist, she unwinds her hair and lets it fall. She pinches the hair tie in between her teeth and pulls her curls into a high ponytail. 

That’s more like it. 

Now things feel more familiar. 

These are her roots, her beginnings. She feels like she’s a private again, working her way up the ranks. Her muscles quiver, not with fear, but with an unused energy she wishes to release. She’s been waiting for too long. Her duty was keeping her to the sidelines. Percy has forced her hand. 

They walk past each other, taking opposite sides of the ring. 

And, to her surprise, she sees a spark of something in Percy’s eyes, same as hers. It wasn’t there before, not with the thirty-some competitors he’s faced today. A smile quirks his cheek. 

“Do you need to wrap your wrists?” he asks, showing the frayed bandages over his knuckles as he turns to face her. 

“You don’t have to worry about that,” she says. She readies herself. She stands loosely, looking as if she’s on her heels, but she’s poised, steady, waiting. Her fists are curled, only just, as she shifts her shoulders and gets into a wider stance. Raising her hands, she finds Percy mirroring her, almost down to the last inch. It’s natural, instinctive. There’s an underlying hum of familiarity. 

They’ve never faced each other before, never even so much as trained in boot camp together, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Now they are on the same page. 

The reason he’s been disappointing her today is because she wasn’t challenging him. It was time to give him room to prove himself. 

“Fight,” Frank’s voice calls, and by then Percy’s moving, fast, faster than he’s been moving all day.

She dives, rolls, comes up, parrys his punch and counters with a cross. He kicks, she blocks. His movements are solid, his technique genuine. He’s not holding back. She rises, throws an elbow, he blocks, and backs up. Their footwork match, a dance. Step, one two three, step, one two three. There’s a rhythm to her heart, in his breaths, with his strikes. Each one is countered, blocked, dodged, neither of them able to land a hit. 

_ Good _ , Annabeth thinks.  _ There’s something still there. _

They break, parting for a moment, gathering themselves with a couple of breaths. 

“What are you doing?” Piper calls to Percy. “Are you  _ trying _ to lose?” 

Annabeth’s heart is alive, thrumming for more. Percy doesn’t answer Piper. He doesn’t have time; Annabeth is on the attack. 

She leaps, cracks her elbow down, misses, he pivots, spins, she grabs him from behind, he goes to hit, she catches his fist and turns. Two steps, she rams up against him, her back against his chest, and she throws him off her hip. He hits the ground with an enormous THWACK. 

The crowd erupts, but Percy lashes out with his heel. It connects with the back of Annabeth’s knee. She drops. He pulls her wrist. Together they fall, scrambling, jockeying, vying for a better position. They roll. Percy ends up on top. Her legs are pinned, she’s struggling. But his hold slips, he loses grip, they roll, and she’s on top. Their arms are pretzels, their legs vices. Their grips change, loosening, then grabbing onto each other once more, never letting the other get the upper hand. 

“Reset,” Frank calls. It’s a draw. They break free from each other. 

The crowd whoops and claps. Percy and Annabeth get to their feet, returning to the outer rings of the circle. The blood has rushed to Annabeth’s face. She feels flush, if not a little winded. She is out of practice. That’s what no training replaced by lots of paperwork gets her. But she’s ready for another round. She’s not walking away from this one with a loss. 

She faces Percy, and he looks just as ready as she does. There’s a sheen of sweat across his chest and his face. He shakes his head, droplets falling from his hair. He raises his fists. She does the same. 

Frank starts the next round with, “Fight!” And they begin again. It’s more fluid this time, more dynamic, changing, morphing, flowing, leading and following. Each land a couple of hits, fair and well-won. It’s far from over. They’ve only just begun. 

There’s power in her breath, in her strikes, equal to his own. She can read him now. He’s opened himself up. He’s pouring himself into his movements, completely letting go of all that held him back before. She sees him through everything. Perhaps, she thinks, he sees her too. This is the most basic level of humanity. This is the drift. 

And something must have changed in Annabeth’s face, because Percy reads her for a moment too long. She takes the openness of his body and sweeps her foot around, taking his legs out from underneath him. He lands hard on his back and Annabeth presses her knee on his chest, keeping him down flat into the mat. 

There’s a pause, a moment of nothing. Just the two of them, looking at each other, seeing what wasn’t there before. 

Then there’s a cheer from somewhere far away and Annabeth is brought back to reality. Oh yeah. She’s in the training room, she’s in front of all of these people, she’s won. She backs off of Percy and steps away. He sits up, almost as if he’s on strings, and he keeps staring at her. 

The crowd is stunned, no one is sure what to do or how to react. Even Frank has perked up, his mouth having fallen open sometime during the fight. He is smiling. 

Annabeth takes a deep, grounding breath and straightens her back. She goes back to her things, picking up her shoes and her clipboard, and faces the rest.

“That is all,” she says. “Dismissed.” 

No one moves. Only Percy gets to his feet. He’s flushed, panting, but he’s softened, like clay. His eyes aren’t so far away now. And they’re locked onto her. 

“Hey Percy,” Jason says, cracking open a wide grin. “I think you’ve just found your new co-pilot.”


	2. The Hurt Just Leaves Me Scared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Whether it's the base in Tokyo or the one in San Francisco he walks through now, Percy is at home. He may have grown up on the Australian coast with sand between his toes and sea salt in his hair, but the very first day he walked into the Shatterdome as a new recruit, shiney and green, Percy had known this is where he belongs._
> 
>  
> 
> Percy contemplates what it might be like to have Annabeth Chase as a co-pilot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just have to say, i love this AU with all my heart and i hope you guys do too. jane is a wonder and a dream to write with, kat is an absolute DREAMBOAT for beta-ing <3
> 
> chapter title is from Atlantis by Seafret.

The hallways of the base are made up of steel walls and concrete floors. Percy walks them like the aisle of a church, like the corridors of his childhood home; reverent and settled all at once. Whereas to some, the sharp echoing of boots snapping against concrete and the tinny voice over commands might seem cold and clinical, all of it brings Percy a comforting feeling of belonging somewhere.

And he does belong here. He always has. Whether it's the base in Tokyo or the one in San Francisco he walks through now, Percy is at home. He may have grown up on the Australian coast with sand between his toes and sea salt in his hair, but the very first day he walked into the Shatterdome as a new recruit, shiny and green, Percy had known this is where he belongs.

He thinks back to his first weeks here, fresh faced and unscarred, eager as a puppy at the chance to prove himself. Watchful of the older, experienced pilots, ears and eyes trained to absorb their wisdom.  For years before he’d been recruited, Percy had idolised pilots of the Jaegers as their bravery was plastered on television screens and billboards, thrown in everybody’s faces whether they wanted to see it or not. Percy had been enraptured by it all, but he’d followed one Jaeger in particular for years. Piloted by twin brothers, Woolfe and Jakob Riese, Scarlett Tornado had been a true force of nature. Thirty two drops, thirty two kills, all of them faultless. They had fought with the destructive fury of their Jaeger’s namesake, sweeping through their enemy like a wild tornado and leaving nothing but debris in their path.

Scarlett Tornado was put out of commission just two months before Percy was recruited, following a fight which left Jakob badly injured and their Jaeger even worse so. Jakob’s broken legs healed in time, but Percy understands that other scars take much longer to recover from. He wonders if Jason would want to climb back into a Jaeger were he physically able to, wonders if it’s possible to overcome such trauma when thrust back into the very place that left a person with scars too deep to fathom. Sometimes he wonders if he’s ready to return himself.

Woolfe Riese had refused to find another co-pilot to replace his brother, and had subsequently taken on the role of training new recruits, to Percy’s absolute joy. He was meeting his hero, someone he’d wanted to prove himself to so much for so long. He'd spent hours on the mat in the training room, getting beaten down again and again and again, until he could drag himself off the mat and fight back; until Woolfe Riese pounded his heavy palm onto Percy’s shoulder and nodded his approval; until Percy felt worthy of being in his presence, worthy of the path he’d set himself on years before - to pilot a Jaeger.

Back then, Percy would walk these very same halls in something closer to a daze, tracing his fingers along the metal as if to memorise its cold touch. He’d spent his restless nights in the Shatterdome, feeling himself pulled back there each time, like a dog to its kennel. He’d sit on the upper rafters and gaze down at the Jaegers on their platforms, hanging from their supports, surrounded by scaffolding, and he’d feel an anticipatory buzz in his chest. He’d feel the strange sort of affection he still feels now as he yearned to get his chance to pilot one of them.

Percy is no longer the naive kid he had been when he was first recruited. He feels a world away from that person, too seasoned and bruised to ever regain that level of innocence again, to see the world in that rosey hue. The world is clear to him now, it’s dark and full and painful. He prefers to stay within the walls of this base, where he knows who he is - a pilot.

Well, at least who he used to be.

Today Percy does not wander aimlessly, but marches with purpose. He follows the familiar path down to the Shatterdome and pauses in the doorway when he gets there. The San Francisco Shatterdome is staggering in its enormity. The dome’s ceiling reaches hundreds of feet above to accommodate the dozen Jaegers standing dormant in various states of activity. It’s a garage and a museum and a scrap yard, scattered with busy mechanics and soldiers and recruits. Over all of the noise, Percy hears the rhythmic tick of the war clock above his head and cranes his neck to look. The numbers flip into place relentlessly, marking each second, each minute, hour, day, since the last Kaiju attack. Currently, it stands at twelve days, six hours, forty two minutes, and five seconds. Six seconds, seven seconds, eight seconds.

There’ll be another attack soon, one to reset the clock to zero.

Percy shakes himself off and moves forward into the Shatterdome. He walks past Full Metal Belle, tall and strong in all of her undefeated glory. He thinks about the little toys they’ve designed after her, overtaking Barbie and GI Joe in sales, clutched in the hands of little kids who know so little of the war being fought around them. He passes Scarlett Tornado, an empty casket which has been dormant for so long; a museum piece among these giants. Percy no longer feels the reverence he’d felt when seeing it in person for the first time - some of that magic has slipped away into familiarity - but it still holds his gaze as he passes it by, demanding his respect even in death.

Next to it is Nico and Reyna’s Jaeger, one of the few in fighting condition, still unnamed due to Nico and Reyna’s relentless indecisiveness. Last week Reyna had shot down Nico’s idea over the dinner table in the crowded cafeteria, claiming it sounded more like an STI than a Jaeger, and Percy shared a withering look with Jason, wondering if they’d ever find a name they both liked. He and Jason had named Bronco Thunder themselves, agreeing on the name only minutes after they’d seen the Jaeger for the first time. The name just fit, like their minds in the drift, falling into place with ease.

Name or no name, Nico and Reyna are due to be shipped out to the Peruvian coast as soon as Leo’s done with his tweaking on the Jaeger. But this has been delayed due to Leo’s preoccupation with a different project for the past few months.

Which is the reason Percy is looking for him.

He strides down the central walkway of the vast room with more purpose, past the milling engineers and the soldiers in their uniforms. He tries to ignore the stares of a group of young recruits as he passes by them. Word spread quickly about the failed recruitment yesterday, about his fight with Lieutenant Chase. _Annabeth_. He has to remind himself of her first name. He doesn't like it: it strips her of some of her coldness, makes her seem more human. Percy still doesn’t know how he feels about the events of yesterday, but he sure as hell knows that he doesn’t appreciate others trying to interpret what it means, or staring at him so openly. He cuts the young soldiers a sharp glare and they all look away, startled.

Good.

Percy spots his target a moment later, walking down the centre strip of the room, seemingly talking to himself, oblivious to his surroundings as vehicles and groups of people verge out of his way like water diverted by a rock in the river. Percy jogs to catch up to Leo, head engineer slash mechanic and Jaeger enthusiast at the base. It turns out Leo is speaking into an audio recorder which he’s holding against his chin like a microphone. He’s babbling on about calculations in what seems like a foreign language to Percy. Leo throws Percy a glance when he catches up to him but does nothing else to acknowledge his presence.

“We need to talk,” Percy says.

Leo breaks neither his stride nor his rambling calculations. Percy breathes out through his nose and sticks his hands into the pockets of his pants as he resigns himself to waiting for Leo to come out of his own brain to speak to him. He’s used to this sort of behaviour from Leo, who got a degree in mechanical engineering at the age of fifteen and built a nuclear reactor in his mom’s garage at the age of seventeen, and who was recruited into the Jaeger programme straight out of a jail cell after he stole a whole batch of Plutonium for whatever mad science project he’d had planned next. At the age of twenty five, he’s one of the youngest engineers here, and yet he’d advanced through the system and is now head engineer of the Jaeger Programme in San Francisco.

So he’s a mad genius, and he’s responsible for building Percy’s next Jaeger, which is why Percy is willing to put up with being ignored for a few minutes. He keeps Leo’s pace as they walk through the Shatterdome, matching the shorter man’s stride effortlessly, scowling at the floor so as to avoid any more unwelcome stares. He doesn’t realise where they’re going until Leo stops walking, tucking his audio recorder into a pocket and releasing a besotted sigh.

Percy stops too and follows Leo’s gaze up to the towering Jaeger stood dormant in the deepest corner of the Shatterdome. Leo’s pride and glory, the ancient old beast he’s determined to refurbish into Percy’s new Jaeger. It’s a mark three, and the only remaining robot to run on nuclear power. It looks smaller than Bronco Thunder, which towers above the other Jaegers in the fleet but now stands next to its replacement, as dormant as Scarlett Tornado. Percy looks over at his old Jaeger, surrounded by tall scaffolding to allow mechanics access to strip it of its more valuable parts.

He was wrong, Bronco Thunder is not a museum piece, it's a part of the scrap yard. Percy feels his fingers start to go numb as he considers how his and Jason’s legacy is being taken apart.

He turns his gaze back to the new Jaeger, still a part of the scrap yard in its own right. Percy can see even from the ground that the bulk of the work has been completed on the upper half of the machine, as the team of engineers occupy the scaffolding platforms positioned at intervals around its chest and head. Everything about it seems so different than Bronco Thunder, from its size to its slimline shape to the circular heart in its chest which will provide its power when it's Frankensteined into life.

Looking up at the empty shell, Percy can’t see how this thing will ever live again. He feels forlorn, staring at it, seeing himself reflected back.

“What did you need to talk about?” Leo says, breaking him out of his revere.

Percy follows him into the workspace, dropping his gaze from the ghostly robot and ducking out of the way as a guy in overalls wheels a trolley stacked with foreign machinery bustles past.

“How long is it gonna take to get this thing up and running?” Percy asks. “My feet are itching.”

Leo turns around long enough to wiggle his eyebrows. “Want me to scratch them for ya?”

Percy pulls a face and searches for something to throw at him. “I’m serious, Valdez.”

Leo’s laugh echoes all the way up to the ceiling. “After what you did to my last Jaeger, you’re lucky I’m building you another one.”

Leo is the only person who speaks so openly about the fall of _Bronco Thunder_ ; even Jason’s voice lowers to an uncertain timbre on the rare instances that the topic comes up between them. Percy thinks that Leo’s blasé attitude makes it easier to think about, more bearable. He hates being tip-toed around.

Percy finds a workbench to sit on. “But look how much you're enjoying building me a new one,” he says to Leo, who's standing with his hands on his hips like he's about to hand Percy’s sass back to him on a plate.

“Listen, Princess-”

“Hey Valdez,” a voice bellows down from somewhere in the vicinity of the Jaeger’s left elbow, “what d’you want to do about this leak?”

Leo whips around, marching towards the base of the scaffolding and yelling something about incompetency and that he'd rather work alone than with these lunatics, leaving Percy and his Princess rant forgotten at the foot of the Jaeger.

As Leo sets about letting his staff know just how incompetent they are, Percy gets himself comfortable on the workbench and picks up a wrench to occupy his hands. There's little he can do, though, to occupy his mind.

As his gaze falls across the Shatterdome, he notices Lieutenant Chase standing at the base of a decommissioned Jaeger, hands clasped behind her straight-as-a-rod back as she listens to a younger soldier report. She stands with a trained rigidity, drawing her upright as if there are strings attached to her shoulders. He wonders if she is ever at ease. Everything about her screams soldier: disciplined, ordered, unwavering.

Annabeth Chase is made of steel and wrought iron.

She’s no older than he is, but she took a different route than he, opting for leadership over fighting on the front line, and she has always seemed older, wiser. He remembers the day Bronco Thunder had been brought down, standing in that cold room in nothing but a hospital gown as he watched his co-pilot, his best friend, fight for his life. He’d felt torn apart himself, disconnected, distraught, furious. Like he’d been hollowed out, leaving behind anger and fear. Then Annabeth had walked in, looking as put together as she always did, not even a hair out of place and he hadn’t understood how she could be so composed.

So distant.

It turns out she hadn’t been as distant as he’d assumed. She’d carried the same guilt he had, she was just much better at controlling it. Percy hated that. Hated that he was being torn apart, left weak and stripped of his armour while she stood tall, seemingly unaffected, in her uniform. And when he’d challenged her, she’d barked him into submission, reminding him of her authority and twisting shame into his gut like a knife as she defended herself.

 _“I sent you out there, I made the calls. His fate is on my shoulders. I may not understand what it’s like to be in the drift, but it’s my pain too. So don’t you_ dare _tell me how I feel.”_

That’s all well and good, but she’s not the one who lost her co-pilot. She’s not the one who dragged a Jaeger back to shore by himself, weighed down by pseudo-paralysis caused by the lingering drift connection to his injured co-pilot, wondering if his best friend would even survive, never mind walk again.

And now he’s expected to get into a Jaeger with her?

Bullshit.

There is no way in hell they are drift compatible. They’re far too different to go into the drift together and control a Jaeger with a shared mind. She probably irons her socks for crying out loud.

“Do I really need a co-pilot?” Percy asks Leo, keeping his gaze on Annabeth as she gives her orders to the soldier, unaware of his watching eyes. “I mean if we’re speaking technically.”

“If we're speaking technically,” Leo says reasonably, “do you like your brain in one piece?”

Percy grunts.

Leo says, either oblivious to Percy’s complaint or choosing to ignore it. “I heard about yesterday. Who would have thought you and Chase would be drift compatible?”

 _Not me_ , Percy thinks sourly.

But then Annabeth looks over, as if she knows she's being watched, and meets his gaze. Her chin lifts and her forehead puckers as she studies him, but she looks more curious than condescending, which is unusual for her.

And then Percy thinks about yesterday, really allows himself to think about it as he holds Annabeth’s stare. He'd felt a fire ignite within him, all brimstone and molten rock, simmering beneath the surface. Her challenge, the confidence of her posture, so very different from the many recruits he'd fought and beaten before her. Her analytical gaze, sharp like a hawk, following his every movement and setting him even further alight. The roll of her shoulders and shift of her heels on the mat. So subtle, and so sure.

He'd felt awake for the first time since he’d dragged Jason out of that Jaeger, and that's what truly terrifies him.

Percy wants to get back into a Jaeger more than anything. His body is restless and his mind feels lazy, unused. He needs this, wants this, _craves_ this. But to get back inside one of those beasts, to hand his mind over to someone else, someone that isn't Jason… Percy isn't quite sure how ready he really is for that. He still wakes up sometimes with Jason’s pain screaming through his body, drenched in sweat and drowning in twisted memories of that day. Memories of feeling Jason’s spine being shattered, of dragging the Jaeger back to shore, of blacking out from the pain.

He still watches Jason in his wheelchair and feels a cold hand crawl it's way beneath his ribcage to squeeze his heart.

He still feels guilt.

And yet. Yesterday he had felt alive. Felt like he'd been snapped out of a sleepwalk as Annabeth pushed him again and again and again. As she tripped him up and swung back and pinned him to the mat.

 _Finally_ , he'd remembers thinking as she held his gaze for too long, _someone who can keep up._

Leo materialises beside him then and Percy isn't sure how long he's been staring into space. Annabeth had walked away, probably to see to another one of her duties.

Percy turns to Leo as he wipes his hands on a grease smeared cloth.

“Look,” Leo says, voice full of reason, “do you want to pilot another Jaeger or not?”

Percy considers this. “Yes.”

Leo slaps his shoulder. “Then get in the damn robot with the scary lady.”


	3. there's a darkness upon me that's flooded in light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy and Annabeth's first Drift trial run. Things go about as smoothly as you'd expect.

“Two pilots, on board.” The AI’s monotone voice signals Annabeth’s arrival. 

Percy is already there, standing next to the gyro-stabilizers, the elliptical-like pedals in the floor of this Jaeger’s head. He’s suited up, same as she, holding his helmet loosely in his left hand while his right punches in the prep sequence on the Jaeger’s control panel. The Jaeger lights up and hums to life. She’s stirring. He turns when he hears her enter. 

Percy does a double-take when he sees her. She thinks maybe he hadn’t expected her to have shown up, or maybe he hadn’t recognized her in the drivesuit. Either way, Annabeth tries her best to be relaxed, well, as relaxed as she can be before a drift test drive. This Jaeger is still unfinished, grounded literally in the sense that it has no legs. It’s the husk of  _ Bronco Thunder _ , and being inside it has proven to be… underwhelming. Not in that it’s not spectacular, because it is - a fine piece of human engineering - but for some reason she pictured it to be different.

She imagined that it was much larger, larger than life. And seeing it in person made it real, somehow more mundane. This was the place where Jason and Percy had fought their last battle together. She can only imagine what he’s feeling at that moment. She supposes she’ll find out soon enough. The drift can be funny like that. She’ll be able to know everything about him in less than a minute, a whole lifetime’s worth of information dumped into her brain. 

Leo’s voice crackles over the comm. “Welcome, one and all, to the grand re-awakening of Mark III Jaeger, model 45-032.” 

“Catchy name,” Percy says, responding with his thumb pressed on the receiver.

“My job is to build it, not name it. If all goes according to plan, you’re going to be the proud new parents of a Kaiju destructing machine, so you get to do it.”

Percy glances over to Annabeth, his expression amused. “Okay,” he says to Leo and takes his thumb off the comm. 

Annabeth notices how at home he looks here. He wears this Jaeger like an old coat, frayed and historied, with metaphorical patches on the elbows.

Percy puts on his helmet, rolls his shoulders, and steps into place. He’s done this a million times. Annabeth is still getting used to it. She feels like she’s borrowing this frayed, old coat, with the sleeves too long past her wrists. It’s one thing to read about the theory, it’s another to do it in practice. She’s only had runs in the simulators and the VR labs, but this is something entirely different. This is grander than she’s ever realized, even though the inside of the Jaeger is so small. It feels like beneath her feet is the entire world, ready to move at her command. When this Jaeger is finished, it’ll be better than new. 

She’s studied everything about the Jaeger. When it’s complete, it will stand at 275 meters tall and weigh approximately four and a half tons, one of the lightest in the fleet, making it one of the fastest. Hyper-active cooling vents, turbo torque, Arc-9 nuclear reactor core… It’s beautiful in its minimalism. Instinctively, she feels attached to it, like it’s already a part of her. In a way, it will be. 

She can’t help the bubbling burn of excitement creep up her chest. 

The drivesuits are modern, an upgrade from the last model. They’re a dark, navy blue - almost a Kaiju Blue in the daylight - the same as the outer armor of the yet unnamed Jaeger. It reminds her of ancient warriors with blood on their shields. The armor is embellished with the state of the art monitoring systems, synapse-reflex technology, acuspinal designs for easy flexibility. There’s a slight problem with pinching under the arm, but that’s something that she pushes to the farthest reaches of her mind. She feels invincible. The suit gives her an unbridled energy. It makes her feel like she’s part of the Jaeger itself.

Annabeth steps into her own gyro-stabilizers, to Percy’s left, and slips on her helmet. It’s snug and secure around her face, pressing her cheeks firmly but not uncomfortably. Just like in the simulations, Percy and Annabeth go through the finishing steps of the startup sequence together. The floor underneath shimmies and vibrates as the engines begin to whir and the harnesses behind them slide into place. She feels it being magnetize to her back with a series of clicks and pulses. The screen in front, the Jaeger’s eyes, dissolves and opens up to the inside of the Shatterdome. They’re staring right at command central, and she can see Leo Valdez, his feet propped up on the dashboard, watching his creation come to life with a wild grin. Everyone else behind him, monitoring the Jaeger’s vitals, scurry about, taking this drill as seriously as the real thing. 

“Neural handshake commencing in thirty seconds.” Leo’s voice chimes in inside of Annabeth’s helmet. 

Her chest is tight, full. She closes her eyes, imagines what she’s about to do, plans for every contingency. She knows what to expect. She knows how to handle the effects. So why is she so nervous?

“Breathe.” She opens her eyes to see Percy looking at her. His face is framed in the dull, yellow light of the helmet. It makes his skin glow. “Stay in the moment. If you get distracted, you could slip into a memory. Just let the drift do what it’s supposed to. Don’t fight it.”

“I won’t.”

“You’re lying.”

She’s annoyed that he can tell. She knows the science behind the drift, but instinctively she’ll fight any unnatural force intercepting her thoughts. She hates not being in control. Is she that obvious?

“I don’t gotta be in your head to see that,” Percy addes. And he actually smiles. 

Her breath shudders but she smiles back. Truthfully, it helps. She’s ready.

The AI’s voice finishes the countdown and Annabeth braces herself. “Two… one… zero…” 

There’s a lurch, Annabeth feels like she’s being sucked downward, spinning, serpentine, tugged into a blinding white light of touch, sight, sound. As if it’s a slideshow, she sees images, some her own, others seen through Percy’s eyes. She sees a stranger on the beach, a woman with black hair, longing. A scraped knee, her fingers grazing the raw skin, laughter. A red firetruck, its wheel broken, tears. Her name, heard through the wind, distant. Endlessly unbecoming, rebuilding, disintegrating, overwhelmingly complete. 

They’re in. 

Annabeth feels the Jaeger bustle underneath, jerking her upright. She hears Percy grunt and groan next to her, settling into position. She can… sense him, like he’s standing just over her shoulder. His presence calms her, she’s not alone. As one, they raise their right fist and slam it into their left palm. The joints of the Jaeger grind and work, mimicking with unbridled accuracy. She can feel the power, the strength, of her movements, their movements. 

“Strong connection,” Leo says. They can hear the room applauding behind him. “Good work, guys.” 

Percy’s thoughts buzz in her head. No words, specifically, just images, feelings, intuitions. It’s white noise, the same as waves lapping on a sandy shore. It grounds her. She glances at him, thrilled by the experience, but his face has changed as well as his thoughts. It goes from waves on the sand to waves on the rocks, thunderous, loud, roaring. She hears herself calling a name through Percy’s voice, “Jason…” and Percy’s staring at her as his memory wrenches them back, back to Percy staring at the broken body of his copilot, his voice giving out with each cry, and he tries to pull them to safety, away from the Kaiju, it lunges, they’re falling. He can’t grab hold of Jason, he’s too far, and they’re crashing down, down, and it hurts, it hurts everywhere, and Percy’s screaming, and Jason’s dying, and Percy’s just trying to survive.

Something’s wrong. 

The Jaeger shudders again, but not in a good way. Like it’s confused, like it has two different heart beats, both trying to catch up to one another, a confused game of tag. 

Annabeth’s thoughts don’t become her own. She’s filling up with them, overflowing, ready to burst. The waves are strong, even for her, and she’s getting swept out to sea. 

Maybe she hears Leo’s voice, something about “out of alignment,” but she’s drowning, she’s losing hold of reality. She can’t think straight, she struggles. The world falls away. She listens as the echoes of Percy’s memory fade, hears _Bronco Thunder_ dying, her own drivesuit’s alarms going berserk, until there’s nothing but Annabeth and the darkness.

Her eyes are open but she cannot see. Reality peels away. 

She knows this place, remembers the taste of smoke, of death, settling in the back of her throat. She’s seventeen again and she’s alone. She’s underground. It’s damp, it’s cold, and she’s in the bunker, and the walls are closing in, even though she can’t see them. There’s a far away noise, jets flying overhead, a roar, a thunderous crash. The floor shakes beneath her feet. She stumbles. She’s blind. 

Her hands reach out in front of her as she searches for something, anything, solid. She’s a kid again. She’s just enlisted. There’s another Kaiju attack. They didn’t see it coming. The alert told them all to take shelter, but she got separated. Luke. Luke was with her. Where is he? Why’d he leave? Tears have long run down her cheeks, streaking them clean of dirt and sweat. She can hear Luke’s words clattering around in her head. She’d be safe in here, he said, here being the barracks. But the power is out. There’s no one here. They’re gone. She’s alone. She’s alone. 

Fear grips her throat, clenches her stomach, makes her feel like she’s choking on the air around her. It’s musty, the dark as thick as smog, and it’s killing her. She cries out for help. 

Luke, come back. Please come back. Don’t leave. Please. Don’t leave me here. 

Her hands pass through air. She stumbles forward. All she knows is that a Kaiju is here. 

She’s just a trainee. She has no power, the building has no power, the military has no power. The Kaiju is coming. It’s coming and she’s trapped, in a box, a dark prison, and she can’t get out. There’s no way out. Her knee hits something hard, pain shoots up her leg. She cries out, not because it hurts but because she’s so lost. She doesn’t know where to go. 

When Luke brought her here, she thought he was coming with her. But he had let go and shut the door behind him, running off who knows where, and Annabeth was so angry at him. She couldn’t stop him, no matter how hard she pounded on those doors, and he wasn’t coming back. She knew deep down that he was doing it to protect her, but how was she supposed to protect him? 

She bites her tongue to stop herself from crying so much, but she hates the dark, she wants to go home. Her hands throb from all the pounding on the door, and they still hurt as she swings them through the dark. She can’t see a thing. A single thing. All of it is black and she’s so far away from herself, from Luke, she cries because she’s so mad, and so scared, and she hates this and she’s spinning because the floor lurches again and she hears the foghorn sirens and the explosions from closeby. Her ears ring. She holds her hands to her head, bracing herself for the next crash, expecting to die before she even hears it coming. She walks, and the sky erupts, she trips, falters, the world is raining down on her, and her shoulder hits the floor. 

There’s dust beneath her fingertips, she coughs, gags. There’s something on her back. Hard, cold, huge. It smells like the world is ending. She’s trembling, as fiercely as the building around her. It creaks and groans, the foundation barely supporting. It’s collapsed, but only a part. I-beams shielded her. They’re cold, heavy. Dropped ceiling tiles are draped over her body. Spittle runs down the corner of her mouth as she chokes on the debris, what’s left of the ceiling. She can’t get up. Her hands grasp at something craggy, broken, her skin breaks and bleeds, slick under her skin. 

“Luke!” she calls out. Her voice is small. She knows he can’t hear her. She can’t hear herself. She still can’t see anything. The world is gone. She scrambles out from the rubble, broken, bruised, bleeding, and she hits the wall. Spots dance in front of her eyes, but she blindly searches, fumbling for anything. She feels the brick, the pock-marked walls painted over with white, now drenched in her blood, smeared by now. Her hands grazes over the door frame, finds the handle, she tugs, and there’s no use. It’s jammed. She yanks, pulls, and it’s pointless. But she tries, and she tries, and she doesn’t give up.

She screams for someone, anyone, to get her out of here, but no one’s listening. No one is around to. She spins around, facing the deeper blackness, the same as it ever was, and thinks she’s going to die here. She’s going to die here. She’s dying. She’s dead. She’s already dead. And this is hell. Her back hits the wall and she gasps for breath. She closes her eyes so hard, fireworks burst behind her eyelids. Tears falls hot and heavy. She can’t breathe. She’s drowning in the dark, suffocating on it. With every breath, the farther she sinks. She has to get out. She  _ has _ to get out. A cry escapes her, but she swallows it back down. Her hand reaches out. Searching, searching for hope. She can’t find anything. 

A light pin pricks in her mind. It’s Percy. Wait, who’s Percy? No, she knows who he is, but she doesn’t. He’s like a stranger across the street, vaguely familiar, waving to her, calling her name. She thinks she sees him, out of the corner of her eye, awash in a spotlight. He’s wearing a drivesuit. Why is he wearing a drivesuit? He’s not in a Jaeger. Is he? What’s he doing here? 

“Annabeth, this was my fault,” he says, pleading. “Listen to me. This is a memory. None of it is real.”

Annabeth shakes her head, rolls with the floor, her ankle gives and she stumbles once more. She crawls. Her hands searching, still searching, and she sees Percy again, closer, trying to come to her, but he’s not moving. He’s stuck, same as she. 

“Annabeth! Look at me,” he says. And she does. She stands, barely, ready to be thrown again any second. And she’s still blind. She can’t see him, she can’t  _ see _ . But she can. It’s only in her head. It’s only… in her head. 

“Percy,” she says. 

“That’s right. Come on. Come out.” 

She shakes, shivering. Fear roars in her head, and she clamps her eyes shut. But Percy is still there, even when she closes her eyes. 

“I can’t,” she says, then screams, “I can’t!” She throws her arm out, it crashes into a bunk. Metal clatters to the floor, sprawling at her feet. Her wrist is hot, throbbing. Tiles crunch under her feet and the floor shakes. The Kaiju is nearby. She can hear its screams. Maybe it can hear hers. 

“I put you here,” Percy says. “I’m going to get you out. But I can’t do it alone. You have to help me.”

This is so real. It’s so real, she can’t stand it. She doesn’t want to be back here. She thought she had left this place, only able to visit it, unwillingly, in her dreams, her nightmares, and she wants to believe Percy, because he’s standing right beside her now. She sees the gleam of his boots in the pale spotlight, his hand extended towards her, his face swirling with dust like snow. 

She hears another memory, a memory from the future - the name Jason, a Jaeger named _Bronco Thunder_ crashing, a pain that’s not hers but shared in her own body, but it gets scooped up when Annabeth takes his hand. 

She had been searching so long, when she feels something solid under her fingers, she reels. She’s not seventeen anymore. She’s not in the bunker. There’s a pool below her, bubbling, rippling, lit from within, and she’s falling with Percy, right down into it. It consumes her, blinding her a different way. The pool is made of light, and sound, and the world comes back to her, and she’s sitting on the floor of her Jaeger, her helmet between her legs, her head cradled in someone’s lap. It’s warm and safe and a hand is holding onto the side of her face, making sure she’s just as real as he is, and she looks up. 

It’s Percy. She blinks. He comes into focus, better and sharper than before. His helmet is off too. Sweat is swiped across his forehead, drenching his dark hair in rivulets. He’s flush, gasping, looking at her like she’s there for the first time. Monitors are beeping and crying, powering down with each passing second. She feels so heavy. She can barely move. There’s that pinching under her arm from the suit like before. Her boots are so clunky and large, she wiggles her toes. Her head is pounding, her stomach flipping. She gasps, cries and coughs, but she’s breathing. The smell of smoke and dust still spins, but a different kind. This was her fault. She did this. The cockpit is in shambles. Sparks fly, cables swing freely, pistons groan to a stop, the AI’s voice powers down, going back to sleep.

She grabs Percy’s hand, feels how sturdy it is, how real it is. It was the only real thing back there and she doesn’t want to let go. 

“I got you,” Percy says. “I got you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I played fast and loose with sentence structure in this chapter. Stream of consciousness can be kind of tricky. Hope it read okay! 
> 
> As always, I wrote Annabeth's chapter. Expect Hannah's Percy chapter soon!


	4. I'm Working on My Faults and Cracks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who are still with us, thank you for your patience, I love you. For those of you who are new to this story, thank you and I also love you. 
> 
> FYI: I am posting this on my phone so I apologise for any formatting f-ups.
> 
> Further FYI: A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to meet my co-writer, Jane, in person as I stayed with her for a few days. During those days, was we managed to plot out the next six chapters of this story, so expect good things to come! As always, this chapter in Percy's POV is written by Hannah and the next in Annabeth's POV will be written by Jane. 
> 
> Further, further FYI: There are a shameful number of Brooklyn 99 references in this chapter. Andy Samburg, please don't sue us, we are but lowly fanfic writers with normal desk jobs. Thanks. 
> 
> (Chapter title is from Backwards Walk by Frightened Rabbit)

“You guys, it really isn’t that bad.”

Percy doesn’t have to look over at Annabeth to know that she’s giving Frank the same Are You Shitting Me look as he is. Frank is standing at the end of Percy and Annabeth’s beds in the infirmary, looking ashamed and awkward. Like he just almost tore a brand new Jaeger apart, like he put hundreds of lives in danger because he couldn’t control his own damn thoughts. There is absolutely no reason that Frank Zhang should feel ashamed. That’s all on Percy.

“Frank,” he says, “I know you’re trying to make us feel better, but…”

Frank crosses his arms over his broad chest, furrowing his eyebrows together as he avoids Percy’s stare. He glances at Annabeth and grunts uncomfortably.

“Just.” He clears his throat, frowns some more. “Get some rest.”

They don’t exactly have a choice about that. The medic who had treated them practically tied them down to their beds, instructing them with a very firm glare and finger point that they mustn’t move. Percy is certain he’s been beaten up worse than this before so he isn’t quite so sure why people are treating them both like they’re dying. It’s just a few stitches, and a concussion, and possibly a few broken ribs. Some slight internal bleeding, but that's where the blood is supposed to be.

Whatever. He’s fine.

Frank opens his mouth and his lower jaw hovers for a moment like he might say something more. But then he closes it and gives them a nod before marching out of the room, closing the door efficiently and quietly after him. Percy wishes he hadn’t. With the door closed, they can no longer hear the buzz of the corridor outside. They are left alone with a quietly humming aircon and rain hammering against the windows. Percy fidgets in his bed, just now feeling how scratchy the sheets are against his skin and the uncomfortable angle at which the cannula in the crook of his elbow sits. He runs a finger over the bandage holding it there, wondering if he can pull it out without getting assaulted by the stern medic.

His ribs ache. So does his cheek where Annabeth had swung out and hit him with her armoured fist, wild in her panic. Percy’s head swims and buzzes and flashes as he remembers being thrown around the inside of the Jaeger as Annabeth wrestled with her own memory. It had been chaos, too much noise and light and movement. He had fought, many times, in similar situations. But that had been with a co-pilot whose mind was focused on the battle in front of them, not lost chasing the rabbit. Not fighting her own battle inside her head. And he had felt her fear, felt it like it was his own.

Percy had gotten lost chasing the rabbit once, back when he and Jason were still fairly new on the field. It had been right in the middle of a battle and he’d just latched onto a memory, falling before he’d known he’d tripped, headlong into the darkness, hearing Jason crying out to him, too far away to be caught. He had been trapped as a child, hearing his city being torn apart around him as he ran and ran and ran, feet bleeding on the hot, rough pavement, voice broken and failing. He’d woken up in the hospital bay days later, the story explained to him by Jason, who barely left his bedside. In the drift, Jason had not quite been caught up with him, struggling to stay in the fight and unable to help Percy out of his memories. They’d fallen out of alignment and had only survived because the other Jaeger in the field had come to their rescue. Bronco Thunder had been deactivated remotely from the Shatterdome and a helicopter had transported them out of there to fly them back to base.

Percy remembers feeling so much shame for letting his co-pilot down, for leaving Jason alone and vulnerable to fight their battle, for leaving the city they had sworn to protect unguarded as he chased old memories and became trapped by his own fear. Jason had brought him out of it, unwilling to let Percy drown in his own self-deprecation. Percy had trained so hard after that, worked himself tirelessly to make sure nothing like that happened again. He worked with the onsite psychologist and threw himself back into simulator training as a sort of exposure therapy, training himself to recognise when he was about the chase the rabbit, and how to pull himself back out of it. It might have been what kept he and Jason alive when Bronco Thunder had fallen. Jason’s pain and memories had threatened to overwhelm him, but he couldn’t let them fall. He’d had to save them, he’d had to fight.

After all of that, he’d dragged Annabeth into the same hell. Guilty didn't begin to cover it.

But they had brought each other out of it.

When he looks up, Annabeth is staring at him.

At once, he sees her lying in his arms again inside their broken Jaeger, stripped of her usual armour and breathless with fear. So far from the straight-backed lieutenant who had stepped onto the bridge. She’d been torn apart, and it was his fault. She’d fallen down the rabbit hole, but he had pulled her there in the first place, pushed her over the edge too.

Percy thinks about what he had seen in the drift. When his memories had shifted into hers and he’d been alone in that bunker, filled with the fear of a teenaged Annabeth believing she was about to die. For so long, she has been an infallible thing to him. A leader, in control, without fear. He had never stopped to think about what might have made her that way, he had never thought about her beyond the uniform and barked instructions.

She had been just a teenager, and Percy could tell that even by that point, she had already lost people she loved. Percy still isn’t sure who Luke is - was - only that he was once very important to Annabeth. He was someone she trusted, possibly someone she’d loved. He finds himself desperate to ask her, to find out more, but he feels as though he has already stepped enough into her mind and dragged out enough raw memories.

He glances over at her, feeling nervous in front of her. To have gone from knowing next to nothing about one another to having experienced one of her most traumatic memories has surely shifted the dynamics of their relationship. Percy is sure that if it were his memories she had seen, he’d be feeling pretty defensive about now. He doesn’t want her to feel defensive around him. He wants her to feel- well, he’s not so sure yet but he's aware that this wall between them is still partially intact and he doesn't want to shove a grenade into it.

“So,” he says, opting to lighten the mood rather than dwell on the negative. “I feel like that could have gone worse.”

She looks at him.

“I mean, it could have also gone better.”

“Percy.”

“Okay, I know.” He tries to turn in his bed to face her and grunts as his ribs scream in protest. Annabeth winces in response. He can see her closing herself off, putting that steel armour back on piece by piece. But for the first time, he doesn’t want there to be a wall between them. He leaves his own scattered on the floor as he attempts to sit up and face her in a less painful way.

“Annabeth, listen. I know that was a terrible first run. It was a catastrophic first run.”

“First run?” She looks at him like he’s lost his mind. “Percy, that was our last run. I can’t get back in that Jaeger with you. I nearly killed you.”

“What? No, come on. You felt that back there, right?” She had to have felt it. It couldn't just have been him.

“Felt what? How I massively fucked up?” The swear word feels out of place coming from her, which is perhaps a testimony to how bad she's feeling. Despite her language, Annabeth’s face is apathetic. He needs to pull her back.

“You? Annabeth. That was my fault. You couldn’t have been prepared for that, it was too much and I didn’t think- Christ. I never thought it would be that bad.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

He looks at her, takes in her stripped back appearance. With her hair down, frizzy around her shoulders, the skin of her cheek and arms under her white hospital gown grazed, she looks younger than he’s ever seen her. She looks like someone he can share the drift with. Another side to the woman who had pinned him on the training mat, challenging him in different ways.

“Percy, what happened back there wasn’t your fault.”

He can tell by the tone of her voice that she isn't about to back down. So he offers a compromise instead.

“And it wasn’t yours.”

She sighs and he swears there’s a smile at the corner of her mouth. “It seems we’re at an impasse.”

“Fine. But you did feel it, right?”

“What? How I got us both hospitalised? How I broke my hand, two of your ribs, and gave you a black eye?”

He shrugs in an attempt to blow off her words. “It makes me look tough.”

“It makes you look like a loser,” she says, but her mouth is quirked up on one side.

“Pft. I look great.”

She shakes her head at him and then lets out a sigh. “How am I supposed to go back out there and demand any sort of respect? My first time in a Jaeger and I nearly tore the Shatterdome apart.”

“Annabeth, come on.” He’s not sure when he started calling her Annabeth, but he isn’t going back now. “If you think that people won’t still be terrified of you, you’re crazy.”

She frowns at him.

“Not terrified,” he amends, “respectful. That’s the word I was going for. People still respect you. Come on, you’re Lieutenant Annabeth Chase, one slightly unsuccessful ride in a Jaeger isn’t going to change that.”

She’s still frowning at him but it’s softened a little. Percy could almost swear she was trying not to smile at him. “Slightly unsuccessful? Do you always understate things?”

“It’s better than overstating them.”

She throws the ceiling a withering look and fidgets with her bedsheets some before crossing her arms. Percy notices how her thumb runs over the edge of the bandage holding her cannula in place. Her knuckles are split and bruised. Their suits are not designed to protect from external injury, only to connect them with the Jaeger.

“Annabeth.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re drift compatible.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it's true. You know what we did back there?”

“Nearly tore apart a brand new Jaeger?”

“We got each other out. Do you know how huge that is?”

He’s sure she does. She knows the statistics and the rates of success and the probability of two pilots getting themselves out of that kind of situation by themselves. It’s next to none. But they did it - he reached out to her and she reached right back.

Annabeth just looks at him for a long time and Percy does his best to maintain eye contact, refusing to back down. Then, eventually, she sighs.

“You really want me to be your co-pilot?”

Relief washes through him, making him realise just how much he wants this. He leans back against the pillows and shrugs. “Eh, you’ll do. But Leo did put an awful lot of effort into building us a Jaeger. Be a shame to waste it.”

“True.”

He glances over and sees her smile.

“I thought you hated me,” she says, not accusing, just wondering.

Percy glances at her. “Thought you hated me too.”

He sees Annabeth shake her head from the corner of his eye. “You first.”

He snorts. “Mature. I don't think I've ever hated you exactly. You're just…” He breaks off and looks over at her properly. “Has anyone ever told you that you're a little...tough?”

“Ball breaker, I think is the term people have used.”

Percy laughs properly then, and regrets it a moment later when his ribs scream in protest. He places a bracing hand over them and gets his breath back.

“Sorry,” Annabeth says quietly.

“Hey, no worries. And for what it's worth, I've never called you that.”

“Do I want to know what you have called me behind my back?”

“Probably not. But I bet you've said worse about me.”

Annabeth shrugs. “Possibly.”

“It must suck.”

“What?”

“Having to work so much harder than everyone around you to prove that you can do your job.”

The muscle in Annabeth's jaw jumps a few times and Percy thinks he might have crossed a line and he's about to be reprimanded.

But she just sighs. “You're more observant than I gave you credit for.”

“Thanks?”

She cracks a smile. “You're…” She looks to the ceiling as if for strength. “I can't believe I'm telling you this. I've always admired you.”

Percy almost gets whiplash turning to stare at her. Annabeth rolls her eyes.

“Come again?” Percy says, in shock.

She scoffs. “You're a very talented pilot and a good soldier, albeit you're a little unconventional in your method sometimes. I've never told you, but the way you got Jason home was nothing short of a miracle. Few pilots would have been able to do the same.”

He blinks at her. “Did you just...compliment me?”

“Don't get used to it.”

He grins but it falls a moment later. “I thought…”

“What?”

“I don't know.” He looks away from her piercing gaze, it's too much this time. “Figured you didn't think I was good enough for this.”

“What are you talking about?”

He wishes he could back out of this conversation and go back to joking.

“You're...you're Lieutenant Annabeth Chase, and I'm just a pilot. That's kind of intimidating.”

“Just a pilot? Percy, did you hear a word I just said?”

“Alright, I just. I'm having some trouble living up to you. You're a big deal, Chase.”

“Well, so are you, Jackson. Deal with it.”

He laughs. “Alright. We're both big deals.”

“The biggest.”

She's smiling when he looks over at her.

“Well alright,” he says with a bit of bluster. “Now that we've gotten that settled, our Jaeger needs a name. We can't keep calling it Jaeger model three hundred twelve, whatever.”

“Mark III Jaeger, model 45-032,” Annabeth corrects.

He gives her a look and she widens her eyes at him and shrugs. “Alright fine, what are you thinking?”

Percy thinks for a beat. “DEATH BLADE.”

“No. That's terrible.”

“Rude. What's your suggestion?”

“I don't know. How did you and Jason name Bronco Thunder?”

Percy feels a little involuntary jolt go through him at the mention of his old Jaeger. It reminds him that he's moving on from the old beast, forgetting, turning over the memories like soil. It feels like less of a betrayal than he thought it would have.

“The thunder part was Jason’s idea,” he says. “Because the joints used to clap in battle, it sounded like we were right in the middle of a thunderstorm.”

Annabeth smiles. “And the Bronco?”

“Well, when I was growing up, one of my friends lived on a farm with horses and I always used to go there after school to ride them and stuff.”

“So you just really love horses?” she guesses, a smile in her voice.

He rolls his eyes indulgently. “Yes, I was the horse girl.”

She grins, no doubt storing away that information for later use. “Alright. So what do we know about our Jaeger?”

“It can go underwater. Leo says it swims like a dolphin.”

“Right. So something to do with water. Like a whirlpool or a wave, like a… a tsunami?”

“Yes!” He sits up in his excitement and grabs for his groaning ribs. “Dammit I gotta stop doing that. Alright, Tsunami… Strike. No. Tsunami Punch. God, I don't know. Do you have a sports team?” he asks, reaching.

“I was born in New York before we moved to San Francisco, so the Yankees.”

“Huh. Tsunami Yankee. No. Yankee Tsunami?”

“Yankee Tsunami,” she says, rolling the words over like marbles in her mouth. A smile slowly transforms her face. “Yankee Tsunami. I like it.”

He returns her smile. “Me too. Damn, we did that a hell of a lot faster than Nico and Reyna. They're gonna be so mad.”

“We need to tell Leo.”

“For sure. He'll design us a pretty logo.”

The door to their room opens then and their stern medic walks in, frowning at them like they've already done something wrong. She's carrying two trays of food with her and proceeds to deposit them on their tables.

“How are you both feeling?” she asks, examining Percy’s drip.

“Chipper, thanks.”

She frowns at him in a surely way. Annabeth stifles a laugh into her fist.

On her way out, the medic turns the TV in the corner on. The opening credits for Full Metal Belle, the cartoon show, flash on the screen.

“You want me to change it?” the medic asks.

“No,” Percy and Annabeth respond in sync.

The medic gives them both another stern look before closing the door behind her.

“I love this show,” Annabeth says without preamble.

Percy grins, picking up his jello pot. It's strawberry, his least favourite flavour. He rolls it back and forth between his hands. “Same. I was bed bound for a week about a month into training and all I did was watch this show.”

Annabeth laughs. “It's addictive. Hey, you want this?” She holds up her blueberry jello pot.

“Sure.”

They toss their pots to each other and catch them without looking, gazes fixed on the screen instead. For the first time, possibly ever, comfortable in each other’s silent company.


	5. beyond the horizon it is easy to love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You know you live in someone else’s head for so long the hardest part to deal with is the silence. To let someone else in, to really connect, you have to trust them. And today the drift was strong." - Raleigh, Pacific Rim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Hannah! Love you!

Annabeth can’t remember the last time she’s been in a classroom. The hours spent pouring over her notes into the wee-hours of the night while her prep school roommates partied were far behind her. But now, with _Yankee Tsunami_ still a very large work-in-progress and Percy, her co-pilot, by her side, it’s back to the books.

Administration requires a minimum of twenty-five hours a week of intelligence, logistics, and strategy coursework while grounded. It’s the standard educational schedule for new recruits, and it’s intended to help grounded pilots stay sharp and up to date on relevant intel. Annabeth doesn’t mind the work. It gives her something to do on long nights. It’s almost like prep school all over again. Some of her peers might find comfort in a show on the tubes to relax, others might go down to the “bar” in the basement and sample a few too many of the Stoll brothers’ Jaeger moonshine, (“Makes a good floor cleaner, too!”) But not Annabeth - she prefers a quiet night, in bed, reading a manual on Jaeger design and development, rife with mathematical parlance. You know, bedtime stories.

Until she can get back in the Jaeger, it will do for now.

She still feels some guilt about what happened - what was it, a month ago?  Chasing the rabbit was about the least dignified thing she could have done on her first day in a Jaeger, save for dropping her pants and flashing the entire Shatterdome while singing the “Star Spangled Banner.”

With her napsack filled with her textbooks slung over her shoulder, she steps out of her room, into the hallway, and comes face to face with Percy as he steps out of his. They pause for a moment, startled. They could almost mirror each other, the way they’re put together.

Percy is wearing his jumpsuit, same as she. His backpack is also thrown over his shoulder, filled with texts for today’s lessons. He looks ruffled and puffy-eyed, like he’d just rolled out of bed, which would make sense since it was nearly seven in the morning. She assumes she doesn’t look much different. Her hair is pulled into a ponytail that drapes lazily over her shoulder. She’d forgotten to shower last night, she was up so late reading the latest article about projected Kaiju Blue effects on natural wildlife. No matter how many years she’s been in service, she has never gotten used to the early wake-up calls.

“Morning,” she says.

“You ready for some schoolin’?” he asks, his voice groggy and hoarse.

Together they head on down to the east wing where classes are held. There’s no time for breakfast. It’s only a ten minute walk and they spend most of the time in silence, too tired to consider thinking about much else other than putting one foot in front of the other. That is, until Percy speaks.

“Something’s different about you,” he says. She can feel him looking at her thoughtfully. “It’s your hair. Don’t you need to wear it in a regulation bun or something?”

“Only high-ranking officers must maintain regulation grooming standards.”

“Only high ranking… Wait, you’re not - They _demoted_ you?” Suddenly he’s wide awake. Annabeth smiles down to her boots. Full-on Aussie rage mode coming up in three - two -

“They can’t do that! That’s bullshit! Who do I have to call? Fuckin’ hell. You’re a _first lieutenant_! Wankers, all of them. Just because of what happened with the Shatterdome -”

Annabeth laughs. Percy is struck silent.

“It’s okay,” she says. “I asked for it - demoted myself. Trying to be an officer _and_ a jaeger pilot is like juggling a chainsaw, C4, and a goose with one hand.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

He goes quiet again. They’re almost there. The hallway has become more populated, louder and chattier, chock full with bodies shuffling to class.

People stare. It’s not often that Jaeger pilots are grounded, amongst the new recruits. She tries not to look at them, but she knows what they’re saying: She’s the one who failed the first time she ever set foot in a Jaeger.

“You could have done both if you wanted to... ” Percy says after a moment. He doesn’t seem to notice the stares.

“I know. But I _didn’t_ want to. Some things are worth more to me now.”

She glances sideways at Percy. The way he smiles stirs something inside her. There’s a familiarity there, at the corners of his lips. And to think, they were barely on speaking terms at one point.

He raises an eyebrow. “... A goose though?”

“It’s a loose metaphor. Bugger off, I just woke up.”

Percy quirks his lip before he steps inside the lecture hall. “You’re really something.”

She and Percy join the new recruits for _Kaiju Methodology and Sociology: What We Know_ every Tuesday and Thursday morning. Since it was their first class, they claim a spot at the back of the lecture hall before it fills up and listen as Professor Inami of the K-science division rallies on about Kaiju theory from the dias below, (“As you can see by the Euclasian model, Kaiju have a propensity to attack via a three pronged approach…”). She’s never been one to take the back row, not even in her youth, instead preferring to sit at the very front as if she could absorb the information via blast radius from the teacher.

Today’s lecture is relevant and engaging and she takes copious notes at lightning speed. She only puts her pen down to rub her wrist - sore and probably pre-arthritic - and sits back in her seat to give herself a momentary break. Her hand has never been the same, not since the Shatterdome incident. Even though the PPDC has the best medical team, there’s only so much they could do. Her hand would always hurt. Her first injury in a Jaeger and it wasn’t even because of a Kaiju…. The drift was another beast.

A saying comes back to her, “The mind is everything. What you think, you become.” Some misinformed people attribute it to the Buddha, but it’s just one of those sayings that persist in the sphere of pop culture. Her father used to say it all the time, especially while grading grad student papers, or rather metaphorically losing his mind while grading grad student papers. She imagines it was funnier to him at the time.

She’s not sure why that memory came to her just now.

She glances at Percy. His leg is bouncing as he writes in his notebook, his brow furrowed in concentration. He glances up at the presentation and jots a quick note before putting the end of the pen on his lips, tracing the lines of his mouth unconsciously. He’s a fidgeter. Maybe that’s why he was a perfect Ranger candidate. He’s always ready, quick to jump on the next task, ready for battle at a moment’s notice. That leg he bounces, it’s the part of him that’s itching to get into a Jaeger.

Then she realizes it: her leg is bouncing too. She slaps her hand on her knee and it stops. She’s never done anything like that before.

She glances at Percy. He doesn’t seem to notice anything and continues writing. She looks down at her notes and notices the doodles she’s drawn on the edges of her notebook - all swirls and patterns. Percy’s look the same.

She shakes her head and continues taking notes, throwing herself into the lecture, but she can’t help but think...

Something is happening to her. In hindsight, it all makes sense. It started small at first, little things like slipping into Aussie slang, craving a cuppa rather than her usual coffee, preferring blueberry Jell-o in the mess hall… But now the leg bouncing? The doodles? She realizes her pen is at her lips. _Fuck_.

She’s not scared, of course. But reading about it is way different than experiencing it firsthand. She’s not losing a part of herself but gaining a part of Percy, like a glass on the verge of overflowing. There’s nowhere to hide, she’s opened herself up to a whole new level of intimacy. And intimacy is not her strong suit, never has been.

Her stomach drops. If she’s gaining parts of him, what part is he getting from her? It is a two-way street, after all. What did he see in the drift? He is taking rather good notes, she notices, and his jumpsuit is looking more pressed than usual. It was a habit of hers to iron her suits every night, almost meditative-like. Maybe Percy was doing that too without even noticing anything different.

Percy glances at her and she realizes she’s been staring too long so she turns back to her notes. Her notes aren’t a stranger's, just flourishes of Percy are sprinkled throughout, almost like he’s right there with her, on each line. It’s actually comforting. She thinks, maybe now, she won’t feel so alone anymore.

When class ends, she and Percy pick up their things and head off for a much deserved breakfast. In the mess hall, they get their oatmeal, eggs, bacon, and toast and pick an empty table.

They’re both so hungry, they dig right in.

“Oh yeah,” Percy says around a mouthful of oatmeal. “Me and a couple of friends are getting together this weekend at this place called The Low Bar. It’s run by the Stoll brothers in the basement.”

“I’ve heard of it.”

Percy balks.

The Stolls were notorious on base, selling all kinds of distilled booze that could floor even the most veteran alcoholic. Their stuff is practically good enough to varnish the Jaeger’s plated armor.

It’s all an illegal operation of course. If any of the higher-ups discovered such a thing, the Stolls and everyone within eyeshot would be court-martialed faster than a person can even say “court-martial.” Anyone found drunk, or drinking, on PPDC property would be royally fucked.

There have always been underground activities, and Annabeth knows about all of them. As a matter of fact, she knows about a whole ring dedicated to smuggling junk food past inspection. Twinkies can easily go for twenty credits a pop. That’s what happens when there’s an apocalyptic catastrophe and the world’s food supply runs on rations. It’s a very lucrative business plan.

A crewperson could get anything if they knew who to ask: retro CDs, playing cards, tattoos, even makeup. And she never once said anything.

“I was a lieutenant, not a snitch,” she says.

“All this time and you didn’t even report us…” Percy says when she tells him this, shaking his head with mock derision. “And here I thought so highly of you.”

Annabeth grins.

“Anyway,” Percy continues, “I was thinking, if you’re free this weekend, you’d want to come join us.”

“Really?” she asks. “They’d be cool with that?”

“You’re my co-pilot. If they’ve got a problem with you, they’ve got a problem with me.”

Annabeth’s gut tightens. Her cheeks twitch with a smile.

“What do you say then. You’ll be there?”

Annabeth has never been one for parties. She always prefers a night in, rather than a night out. But she is flattered that he even considered including her. And she of all people could use a break.

“Sure. I can stop by.”

Percy beams.

“Unless Leo surprises us and gets ol’ _Yankee_ up and running.”

“In your dreams. She’s still weeks out. She doesn’t even have her core installed yet.”

A sneaky smile creeps onto Annabeth’s lips. “If you want to, we can go bother Leo right now, do a couple of rounds of “What is that?” and see if that makes him work faster to get us off his back?”

Percy grins back. “It’s like you’re in my head.” He packs away the rest of his breakfast in record time.

Annabeth hasn’t smiled this much since… well, ever.

* * *

The Low Bar is an old, retired engine room at the end of Hall C in Basement Level 4. Homemade stills (with visible welding lines - who knew what junk parts those things were made of) are scattered throughout the windowless room, as are a few tables and chairs scavenged for a lounge area. While Annabeth hasn’t personally visited before, stepping inside is exactly how she imagined it would be. There’s already people lying around, drinking and laughing and smoking. A buzz of energy fills the air. It’s hazy with cigar smoke and dank and smells like stillwater, like every dive bar in existence, and this is exactly what she needs right now.

Percy spots her before she sees him. He leaps to his feet, waving his free hand and holding a beer in the other.

“Ayy!” he calls. “It’s Annabeth! Annabeth’s here!”

His cheeks are rosy and he has that glossy, distant kind of look in his eye. He’s a few drinks in already.

She’s late because everyone else already seems to be there. At a single table, Jason sits on Percy’s side in his chair, and next to him is Piper, and next to her is Hazel Levesque - co-pilot of Full Metal Belle, and next to her is Frank Zhang, fightmaster. Everyone stares at her when she arrives.

“Make room, guys. Make room. Here, sit next to me. Ay, Travis - pour her a special!”

Travis Stoll, standing behind the bar, looks bewildered. “Are you crazy? She’s the brass!”

“Not anymore!”

He stands aside and lets Annabeth in to the table first. He sits down only after she does.

“Guys, this is Annabeth, Annabeth Chase. Annabeth, this is everyone. I think we all know each other though, right?”

The group says their own hellos and she kind of bows her head in an awkward greeting. She feels stilted. She’s only met most of these people in passing, hardly sharing more than a few words. There’s a deep chasm between officers and everyone else. She wishes she had that drink right now.

“What do you mean ‘Not anymore’?” Piper asks Percy.

“She gave up her rank.”

Piper’s eyes go wide. “Really?” She turns to Annabeth. “Wow.” If Annabeth didn’t know any better, she’d say Piper sounded impressed.

Travis (or Connor - she could never tell the brothers apart) appears and hands her a shot of moonshine and disappears again. It smells like grade-A Jaeger jet fuel. She wouldn’t be surprised if it was.

All eyes are on her. They’re waiting to see what she does. Is she one of them or is she still one of “the brass”?

Without any pomp or circumstance, she tips the shot back in one go. It burns all the way down and makes her shiver.

“Not such a ball breaker now, am I?” she manages to gasp.

The group erupts in laughter. Conversation picks right up again as if Annabeth had been there the whole time. Jason regails them with stories from his and Percy’s basic training days, and Piper and Hazel talk about their latest victory in still-undefeated Full Metal Belle, and Frank rants about how the new recruits these days make his work cut out for him.

Annabeth orders a beer to wash down that moonshine and realizes she’s more relaxed now. That shot did the trick.

Conversations split off, people shuffle around the table, and Annabeth finds herself included in Piper and Hazel’s radar while the guys play a round of quarters.

“How’s it feel being a ranger again?” Piper asks.

“Good, actually,” she says. “Still training but it’s slow going.”

“What’s your sim record?” Hazel asks.

“51 drops, 51 kills.”

She and Piper exchange impressed looks. They don’t say anything but they seem to hold an entire conversation with a single, half-second look. Their movements are so similar, it’s like a choreographed dance number. The way they sit, the way they tilt their heads when listening, the way they laugh at the same time… the little things. Out of the crowd, one could tell they’re co-pilots in an instant.

Annabeth orders another shot. She takes it like a champ.

“Tell us about it,” Hazel says, resting her elbow on the table, her chin on her palm.

“About?”

“Drifting with Percy,” Piper says. “Must be like drifting with a hurricane.”

“It’s not so bad. Definitely not something I’m used to though.”

“That feeling will wear off.”

“You’re strong though. If anyone can handle it, you can,” Hazel says.

“I’m just glad you got Percy off his ass. He needed a good whooping. I saw what you did that day during the trials.” She kisses her fingers to her lips and blows it to the air with a big _mwah_. “A work of art.”

Annabeth remembers that day, that fight, fondly. “All I did was show up. He picked himself up and took care of the rest.”

Piper hums. Perhaps she doesn’t entirely believe that. She and Hazel exchange looks again. She wonders, will that be her and Percy some day? Able to share so openly and so naturally?

Annabeth spins her empty shot glass between her fingers. “Is it… _normal…_ to pick up habits from a co-pilot long after you’ve left the drift?”

Piper and Hazel sag and groan. “All the time!” they say simultaneously.

“The overflow is brutal at first,” Piper says. “Hazel is really old-fashioned, you know, likes all these old things, and she got jazz songs stuck in my head for days straight. I hate jazz.”

“Hey, that’s what you get for making me start biting my nails,” Hazel retorts. She shows Annabeth her stubby nail beds.

“Overflow is like an aftershock from an earthquake. You just have to brace for it.”

“But it makes the bond stronger, really,” Hazel says.

“Something about the neural connection, “backflow” something, or is it “backwash?” J-tech jargon. It’s like brainwashing without all the baggage,” Piper adds. “Why do you ask?”

Annabeth doesn’t know where to start. What’s personal and what’s not in and out of the drift?

Piper squints, pondering a thought. “Let me guess - blue food.”

“How’d you know?”

“Predictable,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, that guy is forever twelve years old.”

Hazel’s laugh is like a windchime.

“It’s not just that,” Annabeth says. “The drift, I… I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. I could have read all the books in the world and still never know the half of it.”

Hazel nods. “The drift is scary.”

“You get used to it though. It gets easier.”

Annabeth takes a long swig of her beer. They must know about what happened in the Shatterdome a month ago, but they’re polite enough not to say anything about it.

“I know what you need,” Piper says, snapping her fingers. She waves to the Stoll brother behind the bar. “Garçon! Another shot for the blonde over here, s’il-vous-plaît!”

Annabeth smirks.

“While Piper wants to get you drunk, I think you were looking for some actual advice,” Hazel says. “All you gotta do next time is trust the drift. Don’t fight it, you’ll burn out. Let it take you where you need to go and you’ll wind up where you need to be.”

The guys erupt in a mixture of cheers and cries as Frank lands a quarter in the shot glass. “Drink!” he roars, doling out punishment.

Jason and Percy tip their shots back and grimace and gag.

“Alright,” Frank says as he stands. He wobbles for only a moment before catching himself. “I’m on the verge so I’m calling it a night. Have to be up early to lead Judo lessons.” His cheeks were flush like he’d been slapped. “Annabeth, a pleasure.”

Hazels stands, she’s so tiny next to him. “I’ll walk with you,” she says. Then she says to Annabeth, “If you need anything, feel free to stop by my place. I’d be happy to have you over.” Annabeth says the same and Hazel loops her arm around Frank’s and together they leave.

“What do you say, Annabeth?” Piper asks. “How about we show these boys what they’re up against?”

Annabeth finishes a shot and suppresses a burp. It burned on the way down and burns even worse on the way up. She clutches her chest and waits for it to pass, wincing.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Alright, fellas,” Piper says, rolling up her sleeves and taking the quarter from the shot glass. “Let me show you how real professionals do it.”

As they play, well into the night, the world goes all fuzzy on the outsides of Annabeth’s vision. It’s a similar feeling like she’s sunken into a beanbag chair and is too comfortable to get out. Time is an abstract concept in the Stolls’ bar, especially when there’s no telling what time of day it is in the belly of the base. She’s also having a good time so she doesn’t care too much what hour it is anyway. She’s warm and at peace and so damn tipsy. And surprisingly good at quarters.

But as the game’s novelty wears off and the booze settles in their veins, things get quiet. Half of the bar has emptied out as the sensible patrons go home for the night. But as these things normally go, when the hours go late, and the world goes quiet, things get personal. That warm, soft feeling, where actions don’t seem to have consequences - it takes over. Annabeth’s guard lowers and that’s when she let’s it slip. She’s not sure how they got on the topic. Things have gone all mish-mash.

“You’re joking!” Percy scoffs, disbelieving.

“I’m not.”

“You _do not_ have a tattoo! You’re so not the type!”

“Well I am! Cuz I do!”

Percy’s laugh is loud and powerful, coming out of him like waves. When she hears it, Annabeth feels at home. Actually, come to think of it, she never really had a home. She moved around so much, lived in so many different places, never in one place long enough to grow roots… Does that mean this is what home would feel like?

“What is it?” Piper asks.

“What is what?” Annabeth asks.

“The tattoo?”

“Oh. You’ll never find out. It’s a secret.” She puts her finger to her lips, coy-like.

“What? Noo, no no, noo, I gotta know now,” Percy croons. It looks like he’s been smacked across both cheeks. And he’s louder than usual. But it’s endearing. “Please, tell me. What is it?”

“Not telling! It’s a secret.” Annabeth continues sorting the provided mix of peanuts, pretzels, and salted almonds in a bowl on the table - another habit of hers.

“Annabeth,” Percy sings, cozying up beside her, nudging his shoulder into hers. “I don’t want to have to go searching in the drift for answers…”

“Come on, dude, if she doesn’t want to say, she doesn’t have to,” Jason says, slapping Percy on the back.

“You’re so drunk,” Piper says, giggling.

Annabeth laughs too and downs the final sip of her beer. Her stomach hurts from laughing so much today and she is going to pay for it tomorrow, both by being sore and being hungover. “You’ll never guess where either,” Annabeth says.

Percy raises a jaunty eyebrow. “I’d love to find out…” He leans in. She can smell the booze on him and she’s so close she can see the pores on his nose. The bow-curve of his lips, the slope of his brow, the depths of those sea-green eyes… Those sea-green eyes looking at her lips... _No._ She turns away.

Annabeth blushes. It’s a different kind of flush, layered on top of the one caused by the alcohol. She swallows thickly and returns to sorting the salty snacks. The sober part of her brain reels her back in. It’s the booze working its magic.

Percy blinks. Maybe the sober part of his brain notices what just happened too. “Sorry, I didn’t mean… that was rude… I -” He clears his throat and looks away.

Piper slides him a glass of water and he drinks - no - chugs it.

“Well, we should be going,” Piper says and stands.

“I haven’t finished my beer yet!” Jason groans. Piper swipes the bottle from his hands and downs it in a few gulps. Jason looks on, helpless.

“Look at the time,” Piper says, glancing at her bare wrist. “That’s our cue.” She takes Jason’s wheelchair by the handles and spins him towards the exit.

“Bye Perce!” Jason calls as Piper escorts him away.

“Bye!” Percy says, waving with a limp wrist.

Piper gives Annabeth a wave goodbye too, and was that a wink? Annabeth isn’t sure. The world has gone a little sideways. Her cheeks are so warm, she must be coming down with something.

With Piper and Jason gone, Percy and Annabeth are the only ones left, besides one of the Stolls who’s standing behind the bar cleaning out used glasses.

“What do you say? One more round?” Percy asks.

Annabeth burps. “Yeah.”

Not one, not two, but three more rounds later, Annabeth is properly wasted. She rests her head on the table, staring at nothing while her thoughts churn like a sprinter stuck in quicksand. Her mind has slipped down, down, down the drain. Percy’s head is nestled in the crook of his elbow on the table too. They’re two peas in a pod.

Annabeth stirs and slurs, “I’m, like, the best at everything, you know that? Grad- _hic_ \- graduated top of my class, got the most medals… I’m like, really, really smart.”

Percy raises his head. He can barely keep his eyes open. “I know. You’re amazing.”

Annabeth sits up and the world spins but she’s got a lot to say. “But the drift… I thought I had it, read enough, knew what I was - _hic_ \- doing, and I still fucked it up. I deserve to be the best, I work _SO_ . _HARD_. But I still come up short.”

Percy’s eyes manage to focus on her. “That sucks, mate.”

“I know!” Annabeth gestures and accidentally knocks over an empty bottle. “I get numbers, I get strageddy… str-tragedy - _strategy_! But the drift - it’s bullshit!”

“The drift is emotion.”

“It’s stupid,” she says. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Isn’t that the point? The drift is an extension of ourselves. If it made sense, we’d all be robots or some shit.” He’s surprisingly composed, despite how much he’s had. "Everything else is just noise. The drift is silence, the drift is us."

“Is that all it is?”

“That’s all it has to be.” He closes his eyes, burrows his face in his elbow, and goes back to dozing.

His hand rests on the table, relaxed, palm up. His skin looks so soft and warm. The drunk part of her considers reaching out to touch it, to make sure he’s real, but the other, sober part of her holds back. She instead rakes her hands through her hair and unties her ponytail.

Her eyelids are so heavy, they droop. She puts her head down and that’s the last she remembers.  

But then she’s woken up after what feels like only a second later.

“Geez,” Connor (or Travis) says, taking his arm from her shoulder. “Get a room, you two.”

The other chimes in from somewhere across the room, hidden behind one of the stills, “Yeah! Get a room!”

Annabeth, bleary-eyed but already more sober than before, blinks in confusion. Percy too, wakes up and looks around.

That’s when Annabeth realizes what happened. She’d fallen asleep across from Percy, but somehow, some way, they both made it to the same side, slumped against one another, propping each other up. Annabeth’s arm is warm from where Percy had been only seconds before. She rubs her shoulder self-consciously as Percy scrubs the sleep from his eyes.

“Your bill,” a Stoll brother says as he drops the check on the table.

Percy sees the total. “It’s _how_ many zeros?!”

She and Percy manage to pay enough credits to make the Stolls happy and head on home.

She and Percy walk together, side by side, stride in stride. Percy’s hands are in his pockets, Annabeth’s are in hers. She doesn’t feel sick yet. Maybe she won’t be hungover after all. They walk quietly, not needing to say much of anything at all except to comment on how late it is after seeing a clock that reminds them of what ungodly hour it is.

When she reaches her room, Annabeth pauses before she opens the door.

“Can you keep a secret? About my tattoo?” she asks.

Percy is nearly inside his room when he stops, alert. He fully emerges into the hallway with renewed fire. His hair is a mess as usual, and his cheeks are still rosy. “Tell me it’s some guy’s name - or girl’s name - someone who broke your heart! Or some kind of tribal tattoo. Ooh, ooh! Even better - a Chinese symbol that you thought meant ‘destiny’ but it really means ‘Bok Choy’.”

Annabeth fails at containing her smile despite her best efforts.

Percy gasps and puts his hand over his mouth. “It’s misspelled!"

“Wrong.”

Percy scrunches up his face. “Oh, I get it. You’re having me on. I bet you’ve really got this, like, awesome tattoo and you’re building me up for some kind of joke.”

“ _Loike_ ,” she says, mocking his accent, “am I though?”

“Wouldn’t put it past you.”

Annabeth caves. “Alright, you win. The secret is… I have _two_ tattoos.”

Percy takes a beat and grins. “You bastard.”

Annabeth shrugs, smug.

“Fuck off to bed, Chase. You’re drunk.”

“You fuck off!”

“You first!”

They’re both grinning madly at each other when a muffled voice from next door cuts in: “  _IT’S FOUR IN THE FUCKING MORNING - BOTH OF YOU GO TO BED!_ ”

That person is right. It is super late. She looks at Percy once more and he looks back. Something happened tonight between the two of them, she’s not sure it’ll ever happen again. She could be convinced she had dreamed it. They’d found each other, even in sleep, needing to know the other one was there. Her heart thumps.

"Hey," Percy says, his voice low. "About what you said earlier - about the drift. I get it. It's a whole 'nother monster. But you're not alone there. So if you're drowning, we’re drowning together. If you're treading water, it’s you and me. And by some miracle, if a sailboat floats our way, you’d best bet we’re getting to that horizon."

Annabeth's heart swells. " Seems like we’ve both got some practice to do then, hm?”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Goodnight, Jackson.”

“G‘night, Chase.”

Annabeth closes her door. She presses her back up against it as she hears Percy close his. Her heart is pounding. She holds her hand to her chest and breathes. Once she’s calm enough, she takes off her boots, then her jumpsuit. The concrete floor nips at her bare feet and she climbs into bed and turns off the bedside lamp. She has only a few hours before she’s expected in the VR lab for more scenarios. She’ll be seeing Percy again in no time.

As her lids grow heavy and she drifts into sleep, she hums along to a little Aussie lullaby that’s been stuck in her head for weeks.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [take me to shore.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12149505) by [venkyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venkyre/pseuds/venkyre)




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